Postcards from the Capital
by Jean Georges Perrin
I am enjoying a glass of Chateauneuf du Pape in the Air France VIP lounge at Dulles. You are wondering how I finished in this dramatic situation? Well, read more...
Wednesday, December 6th
4:45 AM. Wake up, peaceful drive to the Airport. Get a plane to Paris, well to Washington DC, via Paris.
I love DC. This city is probably one of the nicest in the US. No skyscraper, lots of old building, if the streets were not so square, I'd believe I'd be in Europe. However, this is not why I am going to see the capital and I can also assure you that W. did not invite me for a cup of coffee.
WAIUG (Washington Area Informix Users Group) organizes its traditional Informix Users Forum. The Forum is a short event, usually two days, with 3 or 4 tracks or Informix-only content. It is really a nice event: a family gathering just before Christmas.
The event is scheduled on Friday and Saturday.
Why would I need to come to the US earlier then? Well, each man has its secrets, nope?
Thursday, December 7th
Besides the fact that my sister is 30 today, nothing of public interest is worth mentioning.
Hey! Dinner! Speaking of family gathering, we had a Board dinner, with some past Board members, a few of our friends at IBM. It's always nice to see each other, after all, it's already been 6 weeks we have not seen each other.
Friday, December 8th
The conference starts with a keynote from Ambuj [Goyal]. I love the man. Its presentation spoke about Carrefour (French first supermarket chain, 2nd WW behind Wal-Mart), La Poste (French postal services), France Telecom (guess what they do and in which country)...
It was to a point where Paul [Watson], of Scottish origins, was frustrated they did not mention Royal Bank of Scotland. Okay, Ambuj was coming back from France, but I enjoyed it (as long as we do not go on the subject of Freedom Fries).
Exhibition hall opened and, among them, Gillani, One Point Solutions and Querix showed a common video called "Informix Partners to the Rescue". If you have not seen it, go discover it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Dbu9w5zEs and share it with friends.
I gave my Java talk. I think I was better than in Vienna. Teaching to University students helped me isolate the issues.
An interesting innovation was the DB2 track which allowed me to see my friend Serge Rielau, a Germano-French living in Toronto (despite that, he does have a sense of humor).
More sessions before the party, where we made new friends, seen old ones...
I will not come on the phone number anecdote, non-French people will be offended.
Saturday, December 9th
We started the day with a Keynote from Arvind Krishna. Arvind is the Vice President of Database Servers at IBM (Ok, it made sense; he's certainly not working for [beep]).
Private chat between the Board and Arvind. Many sessions.
I finished the day by arriving late at Tom (Thomas) Beebe's presentation on IDS, PHP and the PDO driver, a subject I know a bit (search on DB2mag.com).
Tom is the new generation. Tom's presentation was not perfect but he did a great job, and he's certainly one of these people you'll hear again soon.
Good work Tom!
We finished the day with a Board dinner. A very special Board dinner. The Board changes every year, but some things never change. My fellow Board member, Ron Flannery, after serving for 9 years, decided not to seek reelection this year. Ron has done many great things on the Board and we will miss him. We will also miss the constant teasing between Stuart and him (and we wonder who's going to be Stuart's target next year).
Here is an abstract of a mail Ron shared with us lately, to illustrate my à
propos:
Stuart: Ron went to the wrong country for a board meeting!
Reality: Ron came 2 days early to a board meeting in Paris. He went to meet his friend in Frankfurt. But oops, he was running late (!) and accidentally booked a train to Hamburg. (Hamburger, Frankfurter... anyone can make that mistake).
Stuart: Ron fell asleep on Miami Beach and missed a flight!
Reality: Ron stayed an extra night in South Beach after a board meeting. He didn't fall asleep at any time. He went to visit Ft. Lauderdale and got caught by a drawbridge, missed flight by 5 minutes.
Stuart: Ron blew out a tire doing a u-turn with James in the car!
Reality: Ron nubbed a curb at the hotel and a tire blew out. Not even same trip.
Stuart: Ron drove the wrong way to get to a board meeting in Menlo!
Reality: Ron took what seemed to be a shortcut but the road didn't go through. About 10 minutes late.
Ron, we will miss you!
Sunday, December 10th
My friend, James Edmiston, invited me to attend the Sunday morning mass of his parish; followed by a nice brunch; followed by a shooting session at the National Rifle Association range.
I know some would laugh to that. Please don't. I love America, and even if I come to the US several times a year and this for quite some time (I was 8 on my first trip), nobody never offered me such an all-American day. I really enjoyed it and sincerely hope and wish to discover more of this culture.
Thanks James.
I left the Edmiston's house to drop my car at Dulles and reach, slowly but surely my plane.
Now it's almost 9:30 PM, boarding time, let me get another glass of Cotes du Rhone.
Post scriptum note: No photo this time, I forgot my camera with all the pictures on the plane, dealing with Air France to hopefully get it back... I may have taken a glass of Chateauneuf too far...
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